June 12, 2017

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Chinese bike rental giants eye the UK as next battleground

by John_A

London’s for-hire ‘Boris bikes’ have been cruising the capital’s streets for nearly seven years now, while similar projects operate in other parts of the country. Two Chinese companies believe there’s still room for more innovative bike rental schemes, however, and both are expanding outside of Asia to compete anew in the UK. One of these is Mobike, which today announced that its plans to move into Europe begin in Manchester and Salford, where 1,000 bikes will be available to hire starting on June 29th. The launch comes after rival Ofo began a UK pilot of its own in Cambridge two months ago, though it’s a much more modest trial with only tens of bikes dotted around town.

These companies have an edge over existing cycle hire programmes in that they don’t rely on docking stations. Instead, users find the nearest dormant bike, which is tracked by GPS, within their respective apps. In Ofo’s case, people are sent a numerical code to unlock the two-wheeler, while Mobike’s app asks users to scan a QR code on the bike for the same outcome. Whenever the rider is done pedalling, they simply park the bike up anywhere it’s legal to leave them, lock it back up, and the app automatically charges them for the rental period.

These bike-sharing schemes are big business in Asia. Ofo has the backing of ride-hailing behemoth DiDi Chuxing, for instance, and Mobike counts Tencent and Foxconn amongst its investors. Competition between the two, as well as several other identical companies, is particularly fierce in China, and not without its problems. As exposure and accessibility is key, firms have saturated Chinese cities with tens of thousands of bikes each. Sometimes there simply isn’t space to park them up, leading people to dump them in huge, twisted piles.

This eventuality hasn’t gone unrecognised in the UK. Cambridge city council raised concerns about potential pavement clutter ahead of Ofo’s pilot, and in today’s Mobike announcement, Manchester officials note a code of conduct has been drawn up to ensure the influx of bikes don’t become a nuisance.